Walk into the old quarter of Luoyang on any evening, or through Xi'an's Tang-themed streets after dark, and a large share of the people around you will be wearing 汉服 (hàn fú), the historical dress of the Han Chinese. Most of them are visitors who rented it that morning.
This is not a niche pursuit or a costume gimmick. It is the single most popular thing visitors do in both cities, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism writes about it as a tourism format in its own right, and one city has gone as far as issuing standards for the trade. What nobody explains in English is how the day is built.
It is three services sold as one#
The ministry's own description of the format is the clearest short definition: shops offer clothing, make-up and photography as a complete package.
That matters because the three parts are separable, priced separately, and the one you underestimate is the middle one.
- The costume. You choose from racks organised by dynasty and by tier. Tang-style robes are what most people picture and what both cities lean on.
- 妆造 (zhuāng zào, make-up and hair styling). This is the real content of the morning. Elaborate historical hairdressing takes a long time, and traditional touches such as the 花钿 (huā diàn), the forehead flower ornament the ministry singles out, are part of what you are paying for.
- 跟拍 (gēn pāi, a photographer who follows you). Optional, and the largest single variable in what you spend.
The shape of the day#
Plan for most of a day rather than an hour. The sequence is consistent across operators.
You arrive and choose an outfit. You then sit for hair and make-up, and this is where the time goes — in peak season the styling queue is the bottleneck, not the shooting. Only then do you go out. If you have booked a photographer, they meet you at the site; if not, you are free to wander in costume for the rest of the rental window, which is what most people do.
The return window is the thing to ask about before you pay. Commercial practice across shops is to rent by the day with a fixed closing time, to charge an hourly supplement if you come back late, and to charge a further fee if you keep the outfit overnight. None of that is unreasonable. All of it is easier to accept when you knew about it in the morning.
What actually decides the price#
No figures here, because the only sources that publish them are the operators themselves and they change constantly. The variables are stable and worth knowing, because they are what a quote is built from:
- The costume tier. The gap between a standard rack outfit and an elaborate one is the single largest lever.
- How elaborate the styling is, including hairpieces and applied ornaments.
- Whether a photographer is included, for how long, and — the part people forget to ask — how many images come back edited rather than raw.
- Indoors or on location, and whether site admission is included.
- The season. Luoyang in April, during the peony flowering, is the peak of the year, and the whole city prices and fills accordingly.
Luoyang wrote rules for it#
This is the part that exists nowhere in English, and it is genuinely useful.
Luoyang's market regulator treats hanfu experience, styling and follow-me photography as a trade to be supervised. Operators are required to display their licence and mark their prices clearly, and to spell out the service items, the procedure, the after-sales terms and the compensation standards.
If that sounds familiar, it is the same national obligation that governs every price tag in China — displaying the price is a legal duty, and nothing may be added beyond what was marked. What Luoyang has done is apply it deliberately to this specific trade, along with a complaints mechanism promising a response within five minutes, someone in person within thirty, and resolution within twenty-four hours, plus advance compensation in the main commercial districts — the district pays you first and recovers from the shop afterwards.
There is a quality layer too. In December 2024 the municipal market supervision bureau and the Luoyang Hanfu Research Institute published two group standards, on hanfu design principles and on hanfu terminology. The stated reason was complaints about poor make and muddled combinations of styles — a trade that grew faster than its own vocabulary.
Read that as a consumer signal rather than trivia. A city that writes terminology standards and a thirty-minute complaint promise is a city where the trade is dense enough to be competitive and supervised enough to be safe to buy from.
Xi'an or Luoyang#
Both, if you are going to both. If you are choosing:
Xi'an was the Tang capital, and its themed streets are built for photographing at night. The costume reads as continuous with the setting because the setting was reconstructed for it.
Luoyang is the older capital and the quieter one, with palace gates, water and — in April — the peonies it has been associated with since the Tang. It is also the city that regulated the trade, which is a reason of a different kind.
Practical#
- Book the styling slot, not just the outfit. The make-up chair is the constraint.
- Ask what comes back edited. Raw counts sound generous and are not the same thing.
- Ask the return time and the late fee before you pay, not at 22:00 with a bag of clothes.
- Wear thin layers underneath. The robes go over what you arrive in, and Xi'an and Luoyang are both hot in summer.
- Photography rules still apply. A costume does not change what may and may not be photographed at a heritage site, and hall interiors are frequently off limits.
Frequently asked questions#
Can foreigners rent hanfu in China?#
Yes, and it is completely normal — shops in Xi'an and Luoyang deal with foreign visitors routinely. Nothing about the activity is restricted, and wearing it is read as interest rather than appropriation.
How long does a hanfu photoshoot take?#
Most of a day. Choosing the outfit is quick; hair and make-up is the slow part and the queue for it is the bottleneck in peak season. The shoot itself is usually the shortest stage, and many people keep the costume afterwards to explore in.
Is hanfu rental expensive in China?#
It spans a wide range, and the levers are the costume tier, how elaborate the styling is, whether a photographer is included and how many edited images you get. This page does not print figures because the operators are the only ones who publish them and they move constantly — ask for the price list, which in Luoyang the shop is required to display.
What is the difference between Xi'an and Luoyang for hanfu?#
Xi'an was the Tang capital and its themed streets are built for night photography. Luoyang is the older, quieter capital, best in April for the peonies, and it is the city that has written standards and a complaints mechanism for the trade.
What should I ask before booking?#
The return time and any late fee, whether site admission is included, how long the photographer stays, and how many images arrive edited rather than raw. In Luoyang the shop must also display its licence and its prices, so a shop that will not show you either is telling you something.